Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will sit forward. I was saying that Mr. Carroll stated that he found the opinion Deputy Duncan Smith gave extraordinary, but the clusters and outbreaks in Mr. Carroll's industry have brought him and his organisation before this committee today. Before the pandemic, large meat processing plants were most recently associated with protests by farmers. For me, and many others, these two things are intrinsically linked. They speak to how industrial-scale meat processing treats people, workers and small suppliers.

Farmers receive prices so low that they are forced to protest repeatedly to save their family farms, while workers, especially the most vulnerable, are left open to infection. Principles of fairness and equity seem to be lacking. It is not too much to expect that farmers get a fair price and that workers have safe working conditions. During the week, the German agriculture minister pointed out that low prices do not fit with sustainability. She linked low prices with pressures on animal welfare, working conditions in meat processing plants and farmers' incomes. It is obvious that there are clear parallels to be drawn. It is large-scale meat plants that are the issue. It is not migrant workers, farmers or small abattoirs, which do not seem to be having the same problems. It seems that the industrialisation of the sector and its practices has increased the vulnerabilities of many stakeholders.

Mr. Carroll's opening statement provided plenty of context, but was short on accepting any responsibility. What responsibility should the owners of Ireland's meat processing plants take for the mass outbreaks among their workers? What are Mr. Carroll's thoughts regarding a task force being established to review the sector? His opening statement mentioned the uncertainty regarding the exact reasons for the cluster of outbreaks in some meat plants. Media reports, submissions to the committee and statements from workers' representatives raise numerous issues, however. This is against the backdrop of farmers getting low prices, as I mentioned.

I will be seeking that a task force be established to examine the terms and conditions that workers have in this sector and to examine State funding. Will Mr. Carroll and his organisation support that? I have more questions to follow.

I am surprised Deputy Cairns is conflating issues that have emerged in the recent past in terms of relationships with farming organisations and returns in the market with a much more serious situation of the presence of Covid-19, in our environment and our communities, and, unfortunately, in meat plants.

On the issue around farmers' incomes and about the trading crisis, I agree with some of the points the Deputy made about the returns that come to the sector. They should be stronger for both processors and farmers, but we have been in a deep process since last September with the meat market task force in dealing with a range of issues that were identified as needing attention, including wider levels of transparency. We are going through that process now. We have had around five meetings of the meat market task force, including one two weeks ago, and we are moving through that process very well.

I would also point out, and I said it earlier, that we had a different market situation at the beginning of this crisis. We are nowhere near the end of that because we do not have the markets available to us currently that we would ordinarily have had were it not for Covid-19. We are in a difficult situation yet we are performing extremely well, at the European average in terms of prices, so I think I can leave that aside because it is being dealt with in another forum.

With regard to the point the Deputy made about large-scale plants, we do not have large-scale plants. We have 40 plants in this country for a small population of animals overall. They are not large industrial-scale plants, as the Deputy would like to describe them.